Lolo Jones (USA) reacts after finishing fourth in the women's 100m hurdles final during the 2012 London Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium. / Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY Sports

by Chris Chase, USA TODAY Sports

by Chris Chase, USA TODAY Sports

American hurdler Lolo Jones received an unusual, lighthearted request on her Twitter page recently. "Want to race me," read the note from Eric LeGrand, the inspirational Rutgers football player who was paralyzed in a 2010 game.

Jones had never heard of LeGrand or looked at his avatar, which features a picture of him sitting in a wheelchair, and wrote back, "get checked for a concussion. clearly u've been hit in the head... cos u arent beating a track athlete."

Olympian Lolo Jones basically just talked smack to a man in a wheelchair.

Back in July, Lolo suggested Americans would start performing better at the Olympics when "da Gun shootin competition" started. That tweet came eight days after one of the worst gun massacres in United States history at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises.

Neither tweet was, by itself, intentionally insensitive. Lolo didn't know LeGrand was paralyzed, nor is it fair to think she was talking about a crazed gunman winning medals in "da Gun shootin competition."

It was the the timing, reaction and the lack of awareness of one's surroundings that made them cringe-worthy tweets. Lolo doing little to put out her fires didn't help the cause either. Rather than saying something politically correct like "I'm sorry for the victims of the shooting and didn't intend any reference," she went on the defensive and acted like everyone else was wrong for making assumptions about her tweet. Perception meant nothing.

It's the same thing with LeGrand. When Lolo found out LeGrand is a quadrapalegic, her first instinct was to whine about how much hate mail she was going to get for the tweet. There were no public apologies forthcoming. It took a personal message from LeGrand to start communication. He said he didn't take anything personal and understands.

"Thx, Lolo wrote back. "Getting trashed by tons of ppl glad ur not one of em."